America's Journey for Justice comes to North Carolina

1,500 gather at the State Capitol in Raleigh for a voting rights rally

"America's Journey for Justice," an 850-mile march from Selma, Alabama, to Washington, D.C., marking the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, made its way through the heart of North Carolina along US 1 and Highway 401 last week as hundreds of participants came to Raleigh for a voting rights rally on Thursday.

Among those at the State Capitol was the journey's chief organizer, NAACP President Cornell Brooks, who spoke with Common Cause North Carolina about why the fight for equal access to the polls continues a half-century after passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act. (See the video above or watch it here.)

"It might be surprising that we have to do this (50 years after the Voting Rights Act's passage)," Brooks said. "But what may be more pleasantly surprising is the fact that we have so many people so deeply committed who have literally marched hundreds of miles, and who have demonstrated with their feet their resolve, their determination, their commitment to the highest moral and constitutional values of this country."

The march will continue northward from Raleigh through Virginia, culminating with the arrival at Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 16. Learn more about "America's Journey for Justice" at NAACP.org.